That glow

After my last post, a reader contacted me and let me know that the ice cream bowls I had posted about could be made of something called "uranium glass" also known as vaseline glass. I looked it up online and found that uranium glass glows under UV light. I sent the bowls in to work with my husband where they have a UV light for checking out currency, and sure enough, he sent me these pictures of them glowing up a storm.

How cool is that? It's kind of like finding hidden treasure in my garbage treasure :)

So, here is a look at the things I picked up on my latest run.

At a pile with a "SOLD!" sign at the curb, I rescued...

This large flower print. Not a thing wrong with it. Check out the original price on the back.

 

 

This little baggie of NHL collector coins. I tried to find out more about them, but after many Google searches, I just couldn't find ones that looked exactly the same. If anyone out there knows where they may have come from, please let me know.

Here is a closer look at them and their size

 

And this CD mixing machine. No cord was found, but they can be ordered online for about $12. My husband gave this to a co-workers son who has a lot of DJ-ing equipment. He'll tinker with to see if he can get it working with any of his equipment and cords. If so, we'll go ahead and order the cord online and re-sell it. Fingers crossed!

Daintily placed on top of the garbage bags of another pile were these decorative wall items. 

A nice plate rack

This mirrored tea light holder

and this shelf/towel holder. This still has part of a plastic tag on it. It was in impeccable shape, so I doubt it was ever used or hung up.

You can see the plastic tag holder still hanging on it on the left.

This snowboard is still in great shape 

As are these Judo outfits (though I threw them in the was anyways before I donated them)

 

At another pile with a bunch of crappy furniture, I pulled a few household things out to donate to the second hand store like hair dryers, curlers, and straighteners. There was also a box full of electronic junk with a ton of cords and stuff that the scrappers would love, but at the bottom of the box was something that I wanted. I couldn't get it all untangled though, so I pulled whatever was mixed up with it and just threw it into my car to deal with at home. Old Nintendo consoles are really collectible right now, and I could quickly sell this one for about $60-$70, but I have a real soft spot for Nintendo stuff, so I tend to keep and hoard it :P

 

At another pile I took a box that contained...

2 different cordless phone sets

 

a pretty beaded snowflake tree skirt

 

and this wooden storage box that looks like a book

At another pile I found this bird cage that included an unopened package of food, some sanded paper liners and a cuttlebone. Everything looks pretty unused, so I don't think they ever got that pet bird. 

 

They also had out 3 boxes... one contained 31 wine glasses, and 2 were full of glass mugs. The mug boxes have 2 layers of 24 mugs each. That's a total of 96 mugs! I wonder if these people owned a restaurant or something, or maybe they just bought and used them for an event and didn't know what to do with them all afterwards.

 

 

I quickly stopped and grabbed this flower print which was leaned up against a can. It's got a sticker on the back indicating it was professionally framed. I find it rather pretty so I'm going to keep it for my wall of found art that I'm hoping to get up this summer.

 

 

I stopped at the next pile to grab a nice looking shelf. There are a few dings on it that can easily be touched up, but it was probably thrown out because one of the decorative "X" things was broken. The broken one was quite obvious on one of the sides, but I managed to pry out an unbroken one from further down below and have them switch places. Now it's much less noticeable.

 

Can you spot the broken one?

Also at this pile was a kids keyboard that still had some of the packaging screwed into the back of it. I'm pretty sure it's been used as there is a ripped sticker and a few small marks on it, so I wonder what the reasoning was to keep the cardboard packaging on?

I also picked up this twin bed set with a comforter, pillow case, and sham all in excellent shape.

 

At another pile I spotted some Rock Band drums sticking out of a box. I see so many Rock Band drums and guitars, it's crazy. I grabbed the guitars for the second hand store, and a small computer monitor that was in there too, but I didn't have any room for the drums. In the box I also pulled out a Playstation 2 system and remotes, but I oddly didn't find any games at all.

 

There was also another box with a pair of roller blades and a full set of pads inside

And lastly at another pile I picked up...

A pristine Reebok hockey bag

 This cool vintage wizard game

 And this old comic

Right on the back of the front cover is a full page ad geared towards kids on getting their first gun. Oh how the times have changed!

That's all for this entry! Keep looking out for treasures (and the hidden treasures within them!), and happy picking!

Bleh

I don't know about you guys, but I am so done with winter. For the last few weeks I have been in the middle of the worst case of the "Bleh's" I've ever had. I have had absolutely no motivation to do anything, or go anywhere. When it's cold and damp out, my knee and ankle joints get sore as well, so I literally don't want to move either.

Other than the big monthly pick ups, I haven't gone out on any of my local runs at all. I usually love going out and driving around exploring new areas, so on top of it all, I have a mild case of cabin fever as well... but I just don't want to go out there and deal with the cold, the ice, the snow, scraping and cleaning my car, freezing cold toes and fingers, etc...

What also didn't help was this...

 

I was home when it happened, but I didn't hear or see anything. I went to the window to watch my kids come off the bus in the afternoon, and as my son came up the driveway, he looked up, froze, and his mouth dropped open. Then my other son did the same thing. I knocked on the window and looked at them and made a motion like "What? What's up?". My son just gestured at me to come over and look as he pointed to the back of my car. When I got out there, I found my back window shattered, and my kids learned a bunch of colourful new words. 

There were no signs of anything that may have broken it, and after looking online, it seems it may have decided to spontaneously explode by itself. Thank god it didn't happened while I was driving, because I probably would have thought that someone had shot out my window and then I'd have ended up the ditch during my crazy panic. LOL

So, that left my car out of commission for a week until my husband and I could get it to the repair shop. We had taped plastic onto it, and covered it as best as we could, but because of the cold, the tape just kept falling off. I didn't want to risk driving it and having the whole thing fly off. I had to dig into my sales stash to pay for it. Boo :(

Speaking of sales, they have been really slow lately. I'm sure there are many other people feeling like me who just can't be bothered. I'm seeing others on my selling sites dealing with the same thing...nothing is moving right now. I've dropped some prices on my items significantly to make up for the loss from my windshield hoping to move out some stuff, but it's not helping. Come on spring and garage sale season! You can't come soon enough!

Here are some of the things I did manage to find...

From a house with a for sale sign out front, I found a bunch of vintage stuff. I think this stuff came from an elderly person who either died or was moving out into a home.

A beautiful unused Formosa wood salad set from the 70's

A set of vintage ice cream bowls

A few knick knacks

An old board game called Hi-Q from I believe the 1950's

Still complete!

And in a box with a bunch of kitchen stuff that I sent to the second hand store, I found these sets of "Mr No" stickers. I remember a "Mr. Yuck!" from the 70's/80's that scared the heck out of me when I was little. I think Mr. No must be his knock off.

I also picked up this electric acoustic guitar which had it's string board (?) unglued and popped off. My dad is a guitar guy, so I gave it to him to fix up.

I found a bunch of old dishes in a box by the curb, most of the plates weren't salvageable, but I did manage to save these pieces, which I think are a serving dish and a gravy boat

I couldn't find anything about the specific pattern online

I also grabbed these 2 Christmas boxes from the curb, because I had a feeling that someone had bought new Christmas stuff, and was getting rid of the old Christmas stuff.

When I got home and opened them up, I found...

A full tree, a battery operated light up wreath, and some perfectly good decorations

I put the wreath on my front door with the rest of my garbage Christmas decorations that I've collected. :)

This complete badminton/volleyball set went to the second hand store. the box was a bit crushed, and the netting had been taken out of the packaging, but for the rest, everything was perfect. I packaged everything back up nicely, taped up the box, and it was good as new again.

Also to the second hand store went these mugs

Aren't they cute?

This Napa auto parts clock still works just fine, but it looks like a piece of neon tubing is missing around the outer edge. I still didn't think it was reason enough for it to be junked. My son saw it and asked if he could have it for his room, so that's where it now hangs.

This is an example of a box that I will just grab and throw into my car for checking out at home. There is a bunch of misc. junk in there that I end up sorting through. I recycle what I can, and donate anything else salvageable and useable. I put all those pennies in my change jar... I can't remember what it added up to, but it was somewhere around the $3 mark.

Here is another find that makes me scratch my head. It's a perfectly usable and functioning coffee machine. I figure these people probably got something more modern and hip like a Keurig and decided to just get rid of this one.

I got it all cleaned up, and here is my test run with hot water...yup, it works!

Amazingly, this model is still being sold. I found it on sale in a flyer about a week later. Check it out...

 These fish lights would be adorable in a kids room or bathroom.

I picked up this octogon shaped table and quickly sold it for $10 to someone who is going to re-paint and re-do it

I also stopped at a house that had out this old stereo. The lady that lived there came out so I asked her if it still worked and she said yes, so into my car it went.
 

 I also found Frosty sitting at the curb with a few broken mops and brooms. I picked him up because I felt bad for him...yes, I feel bad for inanimate objects LOL. I figured if he didn't work, I could just get some white lights from the store and easily "bring him back to life" myself.

Well wouldn't you know it, Frosty lights up just fine, and he's animatronic! When you plug him in, he slowly moves his arm up and down to tip his hat. He had a few loose snow strands that I easily glue gunned back into place. I had him right outside my front window for Christmas :)

This week I missed a large garbage pick up in one of my most lucrative neighbourhoods because of a snowstorm. Fortunately, the storm just barely touched us, but unfortunately, it still made driving conditions crappy enough that I didn't want to risk going out, and many good things were probably taken to the landfill. Tonight I head out again to a different neighbourhood, and it's going to be a cold one, but they say it will be one of the last cold days of the year and the temperatures will start going up again.

Fingers crossed for a good run, and warmer weather ahead! As always, keep looking out for treasures, and happy picking!